Wal-mart

9 Pages 2222 Words

e, Mr. Walton emulated some of his early experiences with J.C. Penny’s by adopting “The Penny Idea” which was that the company finds strength in referring to its employees as “associates” than clerks.
With a strong company culture and using K-Mart and Target as a benchmark coupled with the concept that the customer is always right attitude Wal-Mart was able to establish 38 stores with sales over $44.2 billion within their first eight years of operations. Wal-Mart instantly became a force to be reckoned with. With in that same time Wal-Mart was traded over the counter as a publicly-held company, and shortly after was approved and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. By 1979 the corporation was deemed the fastest company to ever acquire one billion dollars in sales. By the 1990’s Wal-Mart had positioned themselves as the number one retailer in the United States.

IV Situation Analysis
A. Environment
In the 90’s many retailers were experiencing competitive pressure because consumer spending had slowed and so had anticipated economic growth. In 1995 Wal-mart realized that consumer debt levels were rising and consumers began only purchasing the essentials they needed for everyday living. By 1998 the economy had recovered and the unemployment rates were slow, interest rates were stable, and income was high. These factors made retailers perceive the buying power of consumers to be high, and if the buying power of consumers is high, retailers know the consumers are willing to buy more. Many of Wal-mart competitors attacked the competitive pressures by restructuring their stores. Wal-mart had perfected the discount store philosophy. Many analyst thought discounts would have reached its maturity by the early 90’s. The discount concept came from European retailing and these stores were originally known as malls with out walls because, you could get everything you needed in one store. Wal-mart’s supercenter was an exa...